


Things that Weren't, Things that Aren't, and Things that Won't Be

by miceenscene



Series: Shakarian - A Descent into Madness [12]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Coma, Destroy Ending, Embracing eternity but like...platonically, F/M, Inception - Freeform, Post ME3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-05-19 06:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19351729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miceenscene/pseuds/miceenscene
Summary: Garrus and Liara team up to save Shepard one last time.--------“Garrus, there’s no rush.” She took a calming breath and cupped his cheek. “We can take our time. There’s plenty of time now.”A pained look shot through his eyes before he closed them and nuzzled into her palm. “Jane,” he sighed. He looked at her for a long moment, searching her eyes for something. “Wake up.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itsnatunusual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsnatunusual/gifts).



Shepard ducked under Garrus’ swing and landed a blow at his waist.

“Fighting dirty tonight,  _ Commander _ ,” he said, grimacing and jumping out of her reach. She grinned at him.

“Only way I know how,” she replied, sounding exceedingly cocksure even to her own ears. She could probably tone it down. But it was just so much fun to tease Garrus, especially now that they had started ‘blowing off steam’ together. It’d been very easy to figure out which buttons to push to get under his plates back on the SR1. Now she wondered if getting under his plates could have a whole new meaning. And she was bound and determined to find out.

However, he didn’t take her bait. Just focused further, gaining a similar expression as he did when he was lining up a headshot. He was looking for an opening, obviously. She watched him to look for the same thing, an amused grin on her face.

She was distracted when a toolbox fell off a crate further into the shuttle bay. Most everyone was upstairs at dinner; she’d assumed they were alone. God, someone could have heard their shameless and frankly awful flirting. 

Garrus, unfortunately, wasn’t distracted. He saw her glance away and quickly exploited the opening, deftly pinning her to the mat in such a way that he was able to run the tips of his talons over the backside of her knee. A very undignified laugh escaped her.

“You bastard, that  _ tickles _ ,” she said, gritting her teeth to hold strong against the sensation.

He laughed too. “You never should have told me about being ticklish if you didn’t want me to exploit it. It’s like you don’t know me at all. Yield?”

She sighed, and tried for a moment to see if there was a way out of his hold. There wasn’t. “Fine. Yield.”

He let go of her, hopping up to his feet for a few triumphant poses. “Yes! Ha-ha! Put another point on the board for Garrus Vakarian!”

She laughed as she watched him, still not moving from where she was lying on the ground. Did he know how adorable he was in these moments?

“Don’t feel too bad, Shepard,” he said in a mock--at least she hoped it was mock. For his sake, it better be mock--condescending tone as he helped her up. “It’s an honor to lose to a master.”

“Uh huh,” she replied, fighting back a smile. She double checked that they were in fact alone in the shuttle bay. Thankfully, she saw no one else. Must have just been coincidence that the box fell over. “You know… I know a game that we could play where we both win.”

He looked at her for a moment before it dawned on him. “ _ Oh _ .”

She had to stop herself from laughing at his sudden shift from cocky to flustered that only Garrus could manage to make attractive. She gave him a very deliberate once over before crossing her arms and leaning back on one leg.

“Whaddya say, champion?” she asked, grinning a little.

“Ye--” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Yeah.  _ Definitely _ .”

“Great. Give me ten minutes to clean up a bit and then I’ll see you upstairs?” 

He nodded quickly and her grin turned into a full on smile. It was hard to play the aloof seductress when she just liked him so damn much. She settled for walking away with much more hip swing than she would normally and was gratified to see him staring after her as she got in the elevator. Put one on the board for Commander Shepard.

Shepard hurried through a shower so she could check her mail in time before Garrus arrived. There wasn’t much these days; she and Miranda were still trying to figure out how to balance the books now that they’d kicked the Illusive Man to the curb. While she only had one message, it was from Hackett and even better it was a mission.

She didn’t bother looking up as the doors to her cabin slid open behind her. There was only one person on the ship who would dare walking in without knocking first. She finished glancing over the mail, a frown pricking at the corner of her mouth.

“Hey, do you happen to know where Aratoht is?” she asked him, shutting down the computer and rolling her shoulders.

“Ah, Viper Nebula, Bahak system,” Garrus answered in a clipped tone after a moment. 

She glanced behind her at him. “Wow, you just knew that off the top of your head?” She spun around in the chair to face him. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded a little. She chuckled, then noticed that he looked a little different. “You took off your bandage.”

His eyes went wide and, absentmindedly, his hand rose to touch the scars. “Oh, um… Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Figured… I didn’t need it anymore.”

“Clearly.” She stood and walked closer so she could examine the uncovered scars. They seemed well healed, almost faded. It must have been a good thing that he’d kept the bandage on as long as he had. 

When she met his gaze, he was watching her warily. Maybe he was self-conscious about the facial scarring, gods knew she was about hers at first. She gave him a small smile and gently ran her thumb over the uneven skin. 

“You look good,” she said in a deeper, appreciative tone.

His mandibles twitched uneasily and he looked away with a soft self-deprecating laugh. “There’s no need to lie.”

She grunted disapprovingly and ran her hands up the front of his chest. Then up his neck, earning a low rumble as she went, before pulling his head down to press her forehead to his. “It’s not a lie that I find you  _ damn _ sexy, Vakarian. And pretty beautiful to boot,” she whispered, letting her eyes shut to savor how he hovered around her. His hands ghosted at her elbow, her lower back; it was almost as though he was afraid to touch her.

“Jane,” he whispered hoarsely. Her eyes flew open, but his were shut tightly. No one ever called her by her first name, and he’d certainly never called her that before. 

As if he’d suddenly made up his mind, he grabbed her and pulled her against himself fiercely. He kissed her with a fervor that she’d never seen before. The last time she’d kissed him he’d still been very shy and unsure about it. Now there was an assuredness in his movements, as if the way to kiss her back was all of a sudden second nature to him. Whatever worked for him to gain this confidence certainly worked for her. She was already breathless and they’d barely begun.

Garrus’ arms swept down, picking her up and spinning to pin her against the fish tank in one smooth motion. He quickly nibbled his way up her jaw before running his tongue along her neck in long deliberate strokes. An embarrassing keen left her throat.  _ That _ was new. His rumbling had become much louder. It sounded different than it did the last time they did this, as if there was an edge to his subharmonics. It was coupled with almost desperation in his movements.

“Garrus,” she groaned, half of her wondering why the hell she was interfering in his truly fantastic work. “Garrus, there’s no rush.” He lifted his head to meet her gaze. They were both breathing heavily. She took a calming breath and cupped his cheek. “We can take our time. There’s plenty of time now.”

A pained look shot through his eyes before he closed them and nuzzled into her palm. “Jane,” he sighed. He put her down on her feet before gently taking her face in his hands. He looked at her for a long moment, searching her eyes for something. “Wake up.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Wake up, Jane.  _ Please _ ,” he pleaded earnestly.

“Garrus, what are you talking about?” She grabbed his wrists. “Are you feeling okay?” Her eyes were drawn to his healed scars. “Did you take too much pain medication or something?”

“Jane--”

Suddenly, the doors to her quarters burst open and Liara, of all people, ran through.

“Liara?” Shepard said, incredulously. How the hell did she get on the ship?

Liara just glanced at her, before snapping her gaze on Garrus. “We’re out of time,” she insisted, wiping away the bit of purple blood that was dribbling from her nose.

“No, wait--” he started.

“I  _ cannot _ . Now come on!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Shepard with surprising force. She practically dragged him from the room.

“What’s go--Liara, what’re you--” Shepard yelled after them as Liara shoved him into the elevator.

“Shadow Broker business, Shepard!” Liara proclaimed, cryptically, as the doors shut. Shepard huffed a breath and immediately called the elevator back, captain’s authority. The doors slid open not even moment later, but the elevator was empty.

“What the…” she whispered, stepping into the empty car. She looked around as if there was some secret hidden space in the elevator. “EDI.”

“Yes, Shepard?” her calm voice came from the speaker in the wall.

“Where are Garrus and Liara?” she demanded.

“Officer Vakarian is currently in the shuttle bay, waiting for the elevator to come down. And Dr. T’Soni is not on the  _ Normandy _ .”

Shepard blinked a few times. “But th-- they were just here,” she insisted, half to herself as she stepped back out.

EDI was quiet for a moment. “I don’t understand what you mean, Shepard.”

The world felt a few degrees off balance as Shepard looked around the empty hallway. For a second, it felt a little difficult to breathe and her fingers were suddenly freezing.  _ Dammit, not this again, _ she thought before focusing on her breathing. She hadn’t had a spell like this in a while.

She shook her head and put it all aside as she heard the elevator activate behind her. She watched it go down to the shuttle bay and then come back up. The doors opened to reveal Garrus, with the bandage still on his face and a nervous half-smile in the twitch of his mandibles.

“Everything okay, Shepard?” he asked, noticing her bewildered expression and stepping towards her.

She looked up at him, searching his familiar face for some sort of sign or explanation. But all she found was concern, and some lingering nerves. “...Yeah,” she said finally, shaking off the memory of whatever just happened.

Hesitantly, he reached towards her and squeezed her fingers gently.

“Everything’s fine,” she reminded herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Garrus was beginning to wonder if London had any other kind of weather besides a very steady drizzle. The row of red brick houses across the street were turning almost brown under a darkening grey sky; the buildings were pockmarked by windows filled with warm light. If he just stared at the small grouping of houses, he could pretend that everything was normal. But it was all too easy to lift his eyes and see the charred remains of the once impressive city in the distance. Reconstruction was well underway and not just in this pocket of the galaxy. But the destruction was just that immense.

A politely quiet two knocks came from the door to the small room. Garrus didn’t turn around, there was only one person who still bothered knocking these days. A moment’s pause and then his visitor walked to join him at the window where he was watching a trio of uniformed human children meander their way home.

“How is she?” Liara asked, though she probably already knew the answer. The cybersecurity at the hospital wouldn’t be enough to keep the Shadow Broker out.

“Still the same,” Garrus replied, letting the stinging disappointment leak from his subvocals. 

Liara frowned and nodded. “I’m… I’m sorry it didn’t work, Garrus.”

When he didn’t reply, she stepped away. He turned around to see her straightening the covers on the bed that dominated the space. Well, it wasn’t so much the bed but the woman who laid on it. All eyes were on her whenever anyone crossed the threshold. Even in a coma, Shepard could still command a room.

It’d been harder to look at her the past few days. Garrus had almost forgotten how she used to be. After seeing her as she once was, grinning and fighting and teasing and whole, seeing her now hurt all the more. She was a shell of Shepard on that bed, all hollowed cheeks and wasting muscles. There seemed to be less and less of her with every passing day.

Liara squeezed her hand and sat in the seat on the far side of the bed. The visitor’s chair, as Vega had once called it. There were only two chairs in the room, but the other one decidedly belonged to Garrus.

“I suppose… if there’s one good thing that came from it,” Liara said, trying to put a positive spin on things as always. “It’s that we know she’s still in there. And that she’s thinking of us… or you more specifically.”

Garrus sat down in his usual seat, habitually taking Shepard’s hand in his. It was partially to have just some sort of contact with her, but also her hands were always so cold. At least if he held her hand for a while, it would warm up a bit.

“I suppose,” he agreed noncommittally. He brushed a few wisps of hair out of Shepard’s closed eyes.

“Any brain activity increase at all since?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

“No.”

She sighed and shook her head. 

Garrus glanced over at her. “When do you think we could try melding again?”

Her eyes snapped up to his and she blinked at him for a few seconds. “I don’t… Garrus, I don’t think that’s wise--”

“I checked her vitals from during the meld. There was no change at all. It doesn’t hurt her.”

Liara sputtered. “Just because it doesn’t hurt her, doesn’t mean it’s good for her necessarily.”

“But it could help her. Liara, when I spoke with her… if I had more time, I could get through to her. I know I could,” he insisted. His first strategy had been a little blunt, admittedly, but he was caught off guard by just how  _ real _ everything felt in the meld. It was like he was actually back on the SR2. And Garrus certainly hadn’t been prepared to have Shepard standing right in front of him, talking with him… flirting with him.

“We’ll know what we’re up against this time,” he continued, trying to build a convincing case. “Last time, we wasted half the meld just trying to get our bearings, figure out what was happening--what the rules were.” Liara had wound up bumping into a toolbox in the cargo bay before they figured out that they could interact with the objects in the meld. “This time we can get to her faster, talk to her longer. Convince her to wake up.”

He stopped talking when it appeared that Liara was at least considering it. 

“ _ If _ we try again,” she said slowly. “You can’t get distracted.”

He glanced down to Shepard’s hand in his. “I--”

“You must remember that it only appears that you are behind closed doors. Our consciousnesses are joined. I am experiencing everything you experience too.”

If turians could blush, Garrus absolutely would. He hadn’t intended to do anything but talk to Shepard when he went up to her cabin. But his good intentions were quickly undone by just the very presence of her, and self-control flew right out the window the moment she touched him.

“I’ll remember… I’m sorry about that.”

“I know you miss her, Garrus,” she said compassionately. “I understand, now more than ever.” Liara shook her head a little. “But I can’t maintain the meld for very long, so these visits have to be to help Shepard. Not just to see her again.”

He nodded. He could do that. Frankly, he’d promise anything Liara asked if she’d be willing to try again. He was very much done with sitting helplessly by Shepard’s bedside, hoping she’d wake up soon.

“So… when do you think we could try again?”

Her gaze moved from him to Shepard, she regarded her old commander for a long moment, then nodded. “How about now?”

He gave Liara an encouraging smile and took the hand she held out to him. Melding felt like slipping into deliciously cool silk sheets after a long day. He looked at Shepard’s pallid face as he tried to relax his mind. The world around him paled and faded.  _ See you soon, Shepard _ .


	3. Chapter 3

Garrus blinked a few times and let the colors settle around them before trying to figure out where they were. The first meld had only been a few days ago, so if Shepard was reliving old memories they were probably still on the SR2. Though looking around, Garrus was fairly certain they weren’t on the SR2 right now. It wasn’t a difficult leap to make given how they were definitely standing in the old Council chambers on the Citadel.

“This… isn’t the  _ Normandy _ ,” Liara said, confirming her grasp of the obvious. Garrus nodded, checking around the fountain for anyone familiar. There were the usual politicians and diplomats, but no one that he particularly knew. “When is this?”

“I’m not sure… but it’s been a while since the Council met with our team in this chamber…”

“This could be not involving us at all,” Liara pointed out. “This is Shepard’s mind, she was around before we met her.”

Whether they were a part of this memory didn’t matter, they had to find Shepard. As they rounded the fountain, it sounded like there was something happening up at the far end of the chamber. He caught Liara’s eye and nodded to the stairs before heading up them. 

The Council was in session and a small crowd had gathered along the edges of the chamber to watch the proceedings. 

“Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fires of service in battle,” Councilor Valen stated magnanimously. 

Ah, Garrus knew when they were now. He grabbed Liara’s arm and pulled her off to the side, finding an opening amongst the gawking crowd. That was when they spotted her.

Shepard stood at the very edge of the outcropping across from the Council, her face poised and controlled. The very picture of what a Spectre should be. Behind her was Ashley, looking as proud and valiant as Garrus had ever seen her. And next to Ashley was… Garrus. 

“I never realized you were at her Spectre ceremony,” Liara said, quietly, as the Councilors continued giving their speeches. She glanced at him, as if to check that Garrus was okay with seeing himself.

Garrus simply nodded once. He remembered being absolutely awed at bearing witness to such an historic moment. When he’d woken up that morning he was a frustrated C-Sec detective and by the end of it he was on the most advanced ship in the Alliance Navy and following the only human Spectre into the unknown.

“Do you have a plan?” Liara asked in a hushed tone. Though the people around them didn’t seem to be paying much mind.

“Other than jump out in front of Shepard and tell her this is all a dream?” 

“Ideally, yes.”

“Then no. I don’t.”

“Somehow I expected a little more subtlety from you,” she said, half way between teasing and judgement in a thoroughly Liara way. 

“If you want me to steal a rifle and start firing headshots, I can give you subtle. But waking up my girlfriend…” He shook his head. “Why, do you have a plan?”

Liara thought for several moments, watching the short ceremony finish. “Maybe if she just sees me…?” she suggested. “I hadn’t met her yet at this point, but if she knows who I am--perhaps it’ll be jarring enough to wake her.”

“And if she doesn’t know you?” he pushed back.

She sighed. “Then we can try your plan.” 

Garrus grimaced but it seemed to be the best idea they had. The crowd around them was already dispersing, so they had to move back towards the stairs. They both ducked behind a planter, keeping an eye on the group still on the outcropping. There was a spot nearby that Liara could easily step out into when Shepard drew close.

“Anderson,” Udina’s nasally voice cut through all the ambient noise. “I’ll need your help to set all this up.”

Now that he was more adept at reading humans, Garrus could see the way Anderson’s spine reactively tightened at being ordered around by the insufferable bureaucrat. But professionalism won out in the end and Anderson went quietly with Udina. 

“I expected your ambassador to be more grateful. He didn’t even thank you,” the other Garrus pointed out, sounding a little dismayed.

Garrus had to fight back an eye roll; had he really been this naive when he first met Shepard?

But Shepard just shrugged. “What do you expect from a politician?” she quipped. Garrus could see the expectation on her face, obviously hoping to get Other Garrus to see she was joking. Garrus didn’t bother fighting back the eye roll this time when his past self failed to catch her signal. Joker really hadn’t been exaggerating that stick up his ass, had he?

Shepard headed their direction, Other Garrus and Ashley falling into step behind her. Garrus glanced at Liara and gave her a confident nod. She nodded back and then stepped out after they passed by.

“Shepard?” Liara called.

Shepard stopped on the steps and turned, looking back up at her. Garrus held his breath, staring at Shepard’s face through the leaves of the tree. 

Shepard frowned a little but then blinked and shook her head once. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

Liara walked a few steps closer. “ _ Shepard _ ,” she pleaded.

“Yes…?” She gave Liara a very concerned look, but there was no flicker of recognition. And the world around them remained whole. Yeah, looked like Liara’s plan hadn’t worked out. Time for plan B, full frontal assault.

Garrus stood and came into view, watching as all three of them looked shocked as they each registered who he was. Ashley looked at Other Garrus, her eyes wide and vaguely suspicious. Garrus focused in on Shepard, but like with Liara there was no change other than a very guarded expression appearing on her face.

“Shepard, this isn’t real,” Garrus said, joining Liara on her step.

“What are you talking about?” Shepard said, eyebrows lowered severely.

“You’re dreaming--you’re in a coma,” Liara explained.

“And you need to  _ wake up _ .” Garrus watched as disbelief turned into something sharper and far deeper on Shepard’s face. She stepped away from them, stumbling backwards on the stairs. Reflexively, Garrus caught her arm before she could fall. She ripped it out of his grasp and hurried down the stairs.

“I don’t know what’s going on but you--you’re crazy,” she insisted, moving at a considerable speed.

Garrus didn’t wait for Liara, just took off after Shepard. “We’re not crazy, we’ve been through hell and back with you. We’re your team, we know you.” Shepard wasn’t slowing though Garrus was quickly gaining ground on her. He needed something to convince her. “You were born on April eleventh in Vancouver, Canada.”

“So you looked me up, well done,” Shepard snapped, heading down the final set of stairs now. 

He grappled for something more specific. “Y--you have three sets of perfectly parallel freckles on your stomach.”

“You named your hamster after the dog you had back on Mindoir,” Liara shouted from a few feet behind.

Shepard stopped as she reached the elevator. Garrus dared to reach out and touch her shoulder. “You always give people the benefit of the doubt. You always say, ‘no act of kindness, no matter how small--’”

“‘--Is ever wasted,” she finished. She turned back to look at him, her eyes filled with horror.

He put his other hand on her shoulder and gave her an encouraging smile. They were actually getting somewhere this time. Maybe this would work. “Wake up, Shepard. It’s okay, we’re with you. Wake up.”

She looked at him and the world around them seemed to dim. The colors desaturated and the lines fogged. 

Garrus grinned. “That’s it! Just follow--”

Then the world flickered. They suddenly weren’t in the Council chambers anymore. The world went dark, ash blowing on a foul smelling wind. The elevator had been replaced by a glowing beam of light, reaper troops swarmed around them. It was that final run in London, the one that Garrus and Liara had to be evacuated from.

Garrus looked around in fear for a moment, glancing back at Liara who had a very similar expression. A small rivulet of blood was dripping from her nose.

“Are you doing this?” he asked, hoped. Liara shook her head.

And then as quickly as they left, they were back in the Council chambers. The quiet fountain and murmurs of diplomats a far cry from the dying screams of soldiers and civilians alike. Turning back around, Garrus found Shepard shaking, her hands taut and fingers curled. An empty gaze stared at the floor between them.

“Shepard?” he asked, searching her frozen expression for something--anything. “Shepard, wake--”

Shepard’s gaze snapped to his and she pushed him back. “NO.” The world flickered again, back to London. Then the world started strobing back forth between the chambers and London. “ _ NO _ .” Shepard grabbed her head and curled in on herself as the strobing grew faster, worlds blurring into each other, screams and fountains, ash and petals. Louder and brighter with every passing second.

Liara grabbed Garrus’ arm, preventing him from reaching for Shepard again. The pulsing light hurt to see. He turned away, closing his eyes. And it suddenly stopped.

Garrus gripped the front of his keel, gasping for air and looking around wildly. They were back in the real world, Shepard’s hospital room. Everything was unnervingly quiet save for their panting and the continual beeping of monitors. The last time they’d ended a meld hadn’t felt so crushing, like being plunged into very deep water.

Liara on the other side of the bed was pinching the bridge of her nose, murmuring something so quiet he couldn’t hear. He looked to Shepard, not sure if he dared to hope for any sort of change. There wasn’t any. She was still asleep, still attached to a small army of monitors. Not a muscle had moved on her whole body.

“What happened?” he asked Liara, quietly. “That felt different than last time.”

Liara shook her head. “Shepard… ended the meld.” She sounded absolutely exhausted.

“What?”

“She… kicked us out, for lack of a better term.” She smoothed a hand over her face and glanced at Shepard, a frown appearing on her face. “I think she’s more aware of us in there than we thought she was, even more so with our… tactic.”

Wonderful. So full frontal assault proved to be a failure. He forced himself to look at the whole operation logically, as he would if it was some sort of military exercise. They’d failed, yes; but it appeared that Shepard could still be reasoned with. By all appearances it seemed that Liara’s subtlety plan might work in the long run.

“It could still work,” Garrus said, making himself believe the platitude with mixed success.

She gave him an unreadable stare and then sighed, but nodded. “It could… I should head home.”

“Yeah,” he said softly as she stood and gathered her things. “I’ll let you know if there’s any sort of change.”

She nodded and left the room. 

Alone with Shepard, Garrus scooted closer in his chair. He smoothed the hair back from her forehead and indulged in pressing his brow to hers for a moment. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Shepard scared like she was back in the Council chambers. It was chilling. He felt awful for sending her to that headspace, even if it was unintentional.

He let a few hours crawl by, hoping and hating every minute when it passed by with no change. The night nurses came through and dimmed the room lights, all giving Garrus a few gentle words or a compassionate smile. They’d done this routine many times and they’d all stopped asking him to leave. They knew there was no winning that battle with him. 

Garrus liked the room best at night. Shepard was haloed by the lights from the hallway and looked the most like herself. If he tried hard enough, he could pretend it was like the old days on the  _ Normandy _ . Her, catching a few desperately needed hours of sleep, and him, working quietly to not disturb her but lulled into productivity by her steady breathing. He opened his omnitool, checking and immediately deleting most of the mails sent to him. The only one that really needed a reply was from his father and he could tackle that in the morning.

Out of habit more than anything else, he opened the readouts of Shepard’s vital signs. He’d hacked the monitors to forward a continual copy to his omnitool on his second day at the hospital. He scrolled back through the same usual pulse monitoring, breath rate, O 2 levels; steady was a good sign, the doctors said again and again. Steady was the only sign they had.

He paused as he looked over the brain activity. There was a spike about six hours ago. Garrus double checked the time, and his suspicion was confirmed--the spike happened at the exact time the meld ended. Activity remained elevated but steadily declined back to its usual rates over the following hour. He quickly switched programs on the omnitool.

“Liara… it worked.”


	4. Chapter 4

“So if we can get Shepard to be the one to figure out that she’s dreaming without us telling her, perhaps then she will wake up instead of banishing us,” Liara surmised the next morning back in the hospital room again. Garrus had shown her his late night discovery and she quickly came to the same conclusion as he had.

He nodded. “Yes, I think that could work.”

She lifted her eyes away from the read out on her omnitool to look at Garrus on the other side of the bed. “Can you do subtle?”

“For Shepard, I will do anything,” he replied, biting back the slight annoyance in his subvocals.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Garrus leveled a long stare in Liara’s direction and then huffed a sigh. “I can do subtle,” he promised, not filtering the annoyance this time.

Liara hummed and went back to reading Shepard’s brain activity for a few minutes. Garrus focused on Shepard in the bed. Did she have better color this morning in her cheeks? Or was he just imagining things? It was difficult to tell at times, to see the gradual changes in her lifeless form. He held her hand between his and lightly chafed the skin, trying to rub some warmth back into her frigid fingers.

“Alright, are you ready?” Liara asked, shutting her omnitool and looking his way.

“Yes, please.” He held Shepard’s hand in one and reached for Liara’s with the other hand. The feeling of the meld was familiar now, a cool slip into unawareness of reality. Though reality became difficult to define and separate when everything inside the meld felt completely real. The times before had gotten every tiny detail right, right down to the subtle hum of the engines on the SR2 or the slight floral scent that filled the Council chambers. 

This place was no exception, even though Garrus didn’t recognize it immediately. Colors focused into shapes, and he realized they were standing on yellowed grass in an alley between some buildings. Walking to the end of the alley didn’t reveal anything in particular other than an empty silent street.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked in a low voice. 

“No,” Liara replied, shaking her head. “These are Alliance prefabs, but we’ve been to a lot of human colonies. Shepard probably even more so.”

Walking through the empty streets of the presumably human colony, Garrus was reminded of nothing as strongly as Horizon.

“Where is everyone?” she wondered aloud. They hadn’t seen a single soul the entire time they’d been here and it was starting to set Garrus’ plates on edge. It was the middle of the day presumably, there should be people here. But the quiet was deafening. He stopped short as he smelled something, acrid and sharp. Something was burning nearby.

Looking up now, he spotted the pillar of smoke a few streets over. He and Liara dashed towards the fire, jogging to a halt as they saw the burning wreckage. A whole block of prefab houses were on fire, black smoke billowing up into the air and walls collapsing inside. But not a soul was around.

A feeling of recognition slithered up the back of Garrus’ neck. “I think I know where we are,” he said, still whispering despite the noise from the inferno.

“Where?” Liara asked.

“It’s not safe here,” a new voice said behind them. 

Garrus spun around to see Shepard standing not ten feet behind them. Or at least he was nearly certain it was Shepard, though the girl was younger than he’d ever seen Shepard. Her eyes were hollow looking and her shoulders boney under her shirt. He was so surprised to see her that it took a moment before he even registered that her hands were dripping with blood.

Liara gasped softly and immediately moved towards her, kneeling as she got closer. “Are you hurt?” she asked. Garrus followed a few steps behind, observing everything he could about this young Shepard.

Shepard shook her head slowly. “It’s not my blood,” she said simply. “It’s his.” Her head turned to look off to the left and Garrus saw a bloodied batarian corpse lying on the front steps of a house.

Yes, he knew exactly when this was.

Shepard lifted her eyes to look up at him now, sending a chill through his veins. He’d seen that look all too often during his time with C-Sec, the long stare of a traumatized and broken child. His first reaction was how wrong the look seemed on Shepard’s features, young though they were. And then he remembered how when he’d first met her, she was barely a decade removed from being this Shepard. The internal mountains she must have moved to get from this to first human Spectre were truly astounding.

“It’s not safe here,” Shepard repeated.

“Where is safe?” he asked.

Shepard looked between the two of them and then waved a bloody hand. “This way.” She took off at a surprising speed for her size away from the burning houses. Garrus and Liara immediately gave chase, following her to the edge of the colony and into a field of grain. Garrus didn’t know if it was a trick of the meld or if the fields on Mindoir actually looked like this, but it appeared that they went on forever.

Looking behind him, Garrus realized that the colony had disappeared from view. They should have still been able to see it, the land was completely flat here and they hadn’t been running that far. It was then that the ground gave an ominous rumble underneath their feet. Oh  _ no. _

“Move!” was all Garrus had time to yell before the earth to their right erupted with a living nightmare. The thresher-maw shot up into the now suddenly dark sky with a deafening shriek before spitting a fountain of acid out its great mouth. 

“Liara, can we die in here?!” he shouted as he ran after Shepard away from the beast. The field around them was now a dark barren desert, scattered with a few destroyed Makos and littered with half-melted human corpses.

“I’m not sure!” Liara yelled back.

“You’re not sure!?”

“Do you want to stay and find out?!”

Shepard suddenly stopped, turning to look behind them. Her still young face looked absolutely agonized. “Toombs!” she yelled back towards the thresher maw. The screams of dying men answered her, filling in the gaps between the monstrous screeches.

Garrus grabbed one of Shepard’s bloody hands and dragged her away from the massacre. There was a rise ahead of them--or was it stairs? Whatever it was, it wasn’t Akuze. So Garrus bolted straight for it.

As he reached the top of the stairs, the screams behind them abruptly stopped. Shepard jogged a few steps ahead, leaning on a railing running along the pathway where the stairs had ended.

Garrus and Liara were both doubled over and panting, more out of the sudden spike in adrenaline than the exertion. He looked over towards her, and she nodded, waving a dismissive hand. But when she stood, all the color drained from her face.

“By the goddess,” she whispered, looking out at the new scene. 

Garrus had to agree. He knew all too well exactly where they were standing. The sky overhead was still dark, but a sun was setting in the distance far ahead of them. It would have been beautiful if it was anywhere but Virmire.

“I’m in this to the end, Shepard.” Garrus expected to hear Alenko’s gruff voice, but instead, with horror, he realized it was his own voice coming over the comms. “Go get T’Soni and get the hell out of here!”

“No, I’m alright!” Liara’s voice came over the comms now, sounding forceful and adamant. “Just leave me behind--go back and get Garrus.”

Garrus and Liara had actually been with Shepard at this exact moment on Virmire, when she chose to leave Williams behind to die. Watching her decide then had been difficult but now, when it was both their lives on the line, hearing them each insist upon their own death--Garrus could feel Liara’s own pained dismay wash through him. 

Just like back then, Shepard was mute and gripping the railing for dear life. Her head bowed and her shoulders tensed. But the scene was made all the more gruesome by the fact Shepard was still that fifteen year old girl with the bloody hands they’d found on Mindoir.

Garrus looked towards Liara, how were they supposed to enter into these moments at all? Subtle or not? By Liara’s expression, she didn’t seem to have any sort of clue either.

“Shepard,” he said, quietly, stepping towards her.

“I don’t know,” she replied. Her young voice wavering with emotions too heavy for anyone to bear, much less her. “I don’t know.”

She pushed off the railing and started walking down the path, away from her decision. Garrus and Liara fell into step behind her because that’s what they did. Virmire and the path transforming seamlessly around them with every step into the Citadel. Garrus’ blood ran cold as he recognized the Orbital Lounge in Zakera and Sidonis standing nervously nearby.

Like before Shepard headed directly for her spot, as if on cue, walking with Sidonis as he moved to a nearby railing and leaned on it. The blood extended up her arms to her shoulders now, dripping off her hands with every step.

“Feels like years since I just sat down,” Sidonis said--only it wasn’t Sidonis. Garrus tore his eyes away from the troubling spectacle of Shepard to notice that it was Captain Anderson leaning on the railing now. “Quite a view, isn’t it?”

“Best seats in the house,” Garrus heard Shepard’s strained voice over the comms. But Shepard next to Anderson hadn’t spoken. He looked up into the rafters and to where a version of himself should have been. Hiding in the shadows, was an armored and leering Shepard, her sniper rifle aimed directly at the back of her own head.

“I don’t know,” young Shepard said again. She stepped away, turning as the world around them shifted, the colorful lights of the ward turning blue and darkening.

They were on a ship or a station of some sort, the view out the wide windows ahead of them was of a barren, rocky surface as if they were on an asteroid. Shepard ran with determination, leaving behind bloody footprints with every step, to a computer terminal at the far end of the room.

“Welcome to Crucible control,” an artificial yet unsettlingly young voice came from speakers around the room.

“I want to stop the reapers,” Shepard said, adamant yet exhausted.

“Warning,” the VI replied calmly. A numerical count appeared on the screen in front of them, the numbers growing so quickly they were impossible to read. Then the screen just flashed an error code. “This action will result in incalculable casualties. Do you wish to continue?”

Shepard tensed, her whole body shaking a little as every muscle tightened and braced. “I--” The small sound choked off and she stepped back from the console, blood pouring from her hands now.

“You must choose,” the VI said severely. “To stop the reapers, you must choose.”

“Garrus,” Liara whispered harshly. She grabbed his shoulder and turned him away from Shepard, pointing to the floor. The river of blood pouring from Shepard’s hands was gathering behind them, all types mixed together--human, batarian, asari, turian, krogan--forming a dark ocean. Waves were rising, choppy and foreboding. “We have to go.”

“I’m not going to just leave her like this,” he insisted, throwing a hand back towards the trembling Shepard.

“Garrus, I do not know if we can die here. I cannot guarantee our safety in this world.”

“It’s not safe here,” Shepard said again.

They both turned to look at her, still young, still bloodied. Her gaze moved from her to him to the storm of blood gathering behind them.

“You should go,” she added after a moment.

Garrus wanted to protest, he wanted to grab Shepard and drag her to somewhere safe or to anywhere but here. So he hopelessly gaped at the two of them. How could they expect him to just leave?

Liara didn’t hesitate. She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from Shepard.

“We’ll be back!” he promised her, desperate, even as the world was fading around them.

The reality of the hospital room came into view. Garrus immediately pulled up Shepard’s brain activity monitor, watching for any sign that perhaps that strange trip through warped scenes of her past had helped. He held his breath as the minutes ticked by and he studied the read out. Activity was higher than it had been in the past few days, but nowhere near the spike they’d had last time.

“Dammit,” he swore, shutting his omnitool and pacing away. “Dammit-dammit-dammit.” He gripped the windowsill, frustration rolling from his every pore. There hadn’t even been a chance to step in and help her this time. 

“It seems she’s still processing,” Liara said, much too calm for his tastes. “Maybe she needs more time.”

“She’s had an entire  _ year! _ ” Garrus’ voice broke on the final word. “How much more time could she possibly need??” he bellowed, not caring who heard him outside the room. “If-if she needs to process, she can do that  _ here _ where we can help her!”

Liara didn’t reply immediately, simply finished scrolling through Shepard’s read out and then closed it. She levelled him a blank look that felt forceful all the same. 

“Shepard doesn’t do anything until she’s ready for all the possible consequences. You, of all people, should know that, Garrus.” She stood up calmly as he glowered at the floor. She picked up the few datapads she’d brought with her and turned for the door.

“I know,” Garrus said before she left. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

She turned to look at him and nodded once.

“And thank you for helping.” He flexed his mandibles back and forth. “I’ve been going a little crazy waiting,” he admitted with a sigh.

“I know.” Liara glanced at Shepard still comatose on the bed. “We can try again in a few days.”

“Thank you.”


End file.
